LDF Files U.S. Supreme Court Amicus Brief in Behalf of Interracial Virginia Couple

    i 
He 

President 
Hon. Francis E. Rivers 

PRESS RELEASE Director-Counsel 

egal efense und Back Coombes 
NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC. FOR RELEASE oY ous Devore 
10 Columbus Circle, New York, N.Y. 10019 * JUdson 6-8397 THURSDAY NIGHT NUMBER/212-749-8487 

February 23, 1967 3 

LDF FILES U.S, SUPREME COURT 
AMICUS BRIEF IN BEHALF OF 
INTERRACIAL VA, COUPLE 

WASHINGTON---The U.S. Supreme Court was asked today to strike down a 

Virginia law prohibiting interracial marriage by attorneys of the NAACP 

Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc, (LDF). 

A “friend of the court" brief was filed in the case of ir, and Mrs. 

Richard Perry Loving, a white man and his Negro wife, both of whom are 

residents of Virginia. The Lovings were arrested and indicted under a 

provision of Virginia law which outlaws interracial marriage. 

Virginia's principal claimed justification for the law is, as 

stated in a previous case, “to preserve the racial integrity of its ; 

citizens" and prevent what Virginia calls "a mongrel breed of citizens. 

LDF attorneys counter in their brief that Virginia's justification 

turns on an “amalgam of superstition, mythology, ignorance and pseudo- 

scientific nonsense summed up to support the theories of white supremacy 

and racial 'purity.' 

"This basis for anti-marriage laws,” they continue, "rests on 

theories long deemed nonsensical throughout the world's community of 

natural scientists." 

he brief quoting dis- This point din + 
neticists and other scientists. tinguished American and internationa 

s further substantiate 
1 ge 

The Lovings pleaded guilty to the charge of interracial marriage 

and were sentenced to one year in jail, However, that sentence was 

suspended on condition that they leave the state for a period of 25 

years. 

The Lovings left Virginia, remaining outside its boundaries until 

new litigation was instituted. 

In 1963, they filed a motion in the state court to vacate its 

judgment and to set aside the sentence on grounds, among others, of 

cruel and unusual punishment and denial of due process of law. 

Also cited was the unconstitutionality of the Virginia miscegena- 

tion statutes under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. 

After the motion was denied in the state court, the plaintiffs 

appealed to the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals. 

However, Virginia's highest court found "no sound judicial reason" 

to depart from its prior decision upholding the law forbidding inter- 

racial marriage and concluded that to overrule such previous decisions 

“would be judicial legislation in the rawest sense of that term." 

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to rule on the validity of the 

marriage laws in a 1964 Florida case brought by the LDF, In that case, 

the court did invalidate a law against interracial cohabitation oh the 

G@round™that it applied only to interracial couples and not te couples 
the same race. 

Pe The Supreme Court has never ruled on the validity of laws against 

interracial marriages which remain on the books in 17 southern and 

‘order states. 

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LDF FILES U.S, SUPREME COURT -2- February 23, 1967 
AMICUS BRIEF IN BEHALF OF 
INTERRACIAL VA, COUPLE 

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LDF attorneys now point out that the Virginia Code §20-58, on its face and as applied in the present case, makes a person's race the test of whether his conduct is criminal. They argue that the “essence 
of the law is racial, and race is the test of criminality." 

The attorneys further argue that the equal protection clause strikes down all forms of racial segregation laws. They contend that it is "beyond the power of the state to compel segregation whatever the context and whatever the asserted justification," 

“athe